This invention relates to an indoor observation beehive and particularly to an observation hive from which honey can be harvested without releasing bees from the hive.
Honey bees are among the most fascinating and useful insects. One of the best ways to study the habits of bees is in an observation hive. An observation hive is typically a box with a generally vertical observation window or windows providing a view of the colony. Observation hives are generally constructed only to observe the bee life cycle. It is difficult to maintain a permanent colony in an observation hive since observation hives are seldom constructed to prevent swarming. Moreover, it is difficult to harvest honey from any hive, including from an observation hive, without upsetting the bees or without exposing oneself to the bees.
A beehive especially adapted for harvesting honey is generally divided into two chambers, a brood chamber and a honey chamber, generally called a super, joined by a single passageway. In a typical hive, a queen bee lays eggs in the brood chamber and worker bees collect and deposit surplus honey in the super. For this purpose at least one frame is mounted in each chamber, each of which supports a foundation on which a comb may be built for containing the cells in which the brood is hatched or honey stored.
In an observation hive, it is generally not possible to utilize relatively sophisticated procedures of expanding the hive to cultivate a stable, permanent colony. Therefore, stability must be maintained by other means. If, for example, the brood chamber is much larger than the honey super, the hive will rapidly overpopulate, and as a result of overpopulation, the bees will swarm. Although swarming is not a particularly dangerous phenomenon, the sight of menacing looking bees can be frightening. Furthermore, swarming is a threat to the survival of the colony, since as much as 95% of the bees may be lost from the hive. Therefore, to promote maximum production of surplus honey, it is desirable to prevent swarming.
Honey bees generate a substance known as bee glue or polypropolis, which is used by the bees to fill up cracks and seal openings in the hive. Bees particularly tend to fill in any area of the hive which is not spaced within a tolerance known as bee space. A bee space may vary from 3/16 to 3/8 of an inch. Bee space is the area through which a bee may freely pass. If any area is smaller than bee space, the bees cannot get through and will therefore seal up the space. If the space on the other hand is greater than bee space, the bees will bridge it with cross combs or burr combs.
In the past, in order to harvest honey, it has been necessary to occasionally open and disassemble the hive and to clean away the polypropolis and burr combs, particularly around entrances and passageways. Bees are generally gentle except when aroused or when the hive is threatened. Prior art beehive designs have made it difficult to harvest honey or to service the hive without exposing the beekeeper to bees in the hive. Bees can be driven from the hive for short periods by smoking or fuming the hive. However, frequent smoking of the hive or the use of a fume board can be dangerous practice because it tends to upset the bees, causing them thereafter to become quite mean. Moreover, there is still the danger of exposure to bees according to both methods.
As a result of these combined problems, there is no known observation hive for containing a relatively permanent colony of bees from which honey can be readily and simply harvested, and which can also be cleaned and maintained without unnecessarily upsetting the bees in the colony.